New York State's Public Service Commission (PSC) is currently reviewing Comcast's plan to purchase Time Warner Cable for over $45 billion, a merger which would link the nation's two largest cable companies.

Rather than working cooperatively with the new administration, the major for-profit chains went on the attack, alleging that they were victims of regulations unfairly aimed specifically at them. I do not know why they took this tack, but the result was to focus media and public attention on the for-profit sector specifically.

It's not hard to demonize Facebook for their actions, but this problem is the same with every major company on the Internet today. The current relationship between consumers and Internet companies is unsustainable.

It's an Elon Musk world, and we're just living in it. Before we bow down to a seemingly fearless and altruistic pioneer of electric vehicles and libertarianism, it's important to point out the ongoing contradictions with Musk and markets.

I think it's possible to stop school shootings, or at least dramatically reduce them. Simply put, we need more gun control. But the sad reality is that we're not going to get more gun control until we've fixed a deeper, more pervasive problem: political corruption.

Today that "scorched-earth" approach may have come back to haunt conservatives. Have they now boxed themselves into a corner, unable to support the power of the marketplace to reduce their own states' compliance costs under the new EPA CO2 regulation? I hope not, but only time will tell.

The ongoing debate over the potential removal of an export ban on crude oil that could finally open global markets to U.S. crude oil supply would also challenge existing data collection and analysis practices, all at a time when access to energy is a key component of global security and U.S. geopolitical power.

Could it be that Obama's announcement is a step, albeit a huge one, that leads to the biggest step of them all -- a new international agreement on climate change? It's kind of a fife and drum question. It could be a pipe dream or it could be drumroll.